“The Journal of Wall Grimm” 109: The Zombie Picnic

Yesterday, Hasty, Patrick, Pete, Danika, Ayla, John, Jeff, Jay, Morgan, Randy, and I had a Zombie picnic. Iona couldn’t come because she was working. We all dressed up and got special effects makeup on to look like Zombies and went to the park. We went to a wooded area that had tons of rocks and boulders to hang out on and we put a sign that said “ZOMBIE PICNIC” by the area where people walk. And, we parked on a high road that no one really uses so nobody saw us coming.

It was cool deciding what kind of Zombies we wanted to be. We picked types of people and dressed like that person, then we had to decide what kind of injuries we had or how decayed we were. Hasty opted for a Zombie bite on her breast. I had a bite on the arm and I was dressed as a baseball player, except I had no hat because we figured it would have fallen off. I gave myself from about a few weeks to a month’s worth of decay. We tore up our clothes a little and dirtied and bloodied them. We’d been planning this since Thursday. We each did our own costume and we each made some bloody looking food for the picnic. Morgan went to the Halloween store and spent tons of money on a dead body, one of those fake ones for a decoration. She carved out parts of the corpse so we could put the food there. She carved out the chest where I had all the vegetarian stuff. It was seitan and tofu. She carved out the abdomen where there were sausages and beans. Parts of the legs and arms had chicken. And the brain area had a trifle kind of pudding cake thing for dessert. Everything either had a sauce that looked like blood or was colored with red food coloring. We were all drinking cherry juice. It was really disgusting.

Some people paused and tried to figure out if we were real. Other people just knew we were fake and thought it was awesome so they took pictures. Some people tried to have a conversation with us to ask us questions about what the food was and everything. We just moaned at them because we didn’t want to blow our cover. We stayed in character.

I stayed in character until I went around behind a big boulder for a moment alone with a cigarette. Then I heard a woman with little kids passing by the group and she didn’t sound so sure whether we were real or not. It’s amazing how quick people are to believe in the possibility of zombies. They think they doubt it, until they see a zombie, then they’re like, is it real? This is exactly what the kids were asking her, “is it real?” and she was like, “…no…” completely unsure. So as they began to pass by me, the little kids caught sight of me, and I said “it’s fake.”

They had this second of relief and humor on their face until their mother was startled by my voice and screamed, which in effect startled them, causing them to scream. They ran a little bit away and turned. The woman had a friend straggling up behind. Is straggling a word? It sounds stupid. Anyway, she was straggling and laughing. She was like “this is brilliant.” I said, “wanna join?”

“No,” she gestured toward her friend, “we’re walking.”

“See you on your way down.”

And then she gave me that look that women give when they’re kind of flirty and replied, “maybe you will.” I read into that, but I was thinking, I look like a zombie, that’s weird. But I guess the zombie girls were kind of cute in their own way so I get it. Morgan was a kickass zombie. She was a witch from 1600’s who had been turned into a vampire, but then killed and reanimated to be human again centuries later, only to be bitten and become a zombie. Yeah scientifically it doesn’t make any sense, and she left out the werewolf, but whatever. I was just a baseball player. I wanted to be a Red Sox player but it was too expensive to buy a jersey then destroy it, but in retrospect I kind of regret it. I’d say I’m too short to be a Red Sox (sock), but I’m taller than Pedroia anyway.

So yeah we just moaned and devoured this corpse and it was hilarious. We’d talk and stuff and it was hard not to laugh, but whenever someone would walk by we got back into character. Those women with the little kids came by and they were laughing but kind of rushing by, then I approached in a staggering kind of zombieish way, moaning. She paused, and I walked over to her like a person and I said, “stay.”

She hesitated and looked at her friend. Her friend was like, “stay if you want, we’ll be down by the playground.”

So she stayed. She was a little uncertain, since not only were we a group of strangers, but we were a group of zombie strangers. She asked if we were a theatre troupe. We said no, we were just strange. Creative, but strange. She said she thought it was awesome. Her name was Amy and she was 35, but she seemed more like 25, in looks and in behavior. She was tentative about eating the food so she smelled it at first and then began to eat it thinking it was really good. And she ate my food, because she’s vegetarian too.

We spent about three hours there, we even went on a Zombie Stroll, and we had wanted to do a Zombie Bonfire but we were kind of sick of being in the makeup by the end of three or so hours. Amy hung around with us that last hour. She and I were leaning against a boulder picking the heart and lungs out of this corpse and eating it, and I leaned in and kissed her. I guess I’m kind of forward like that, but when I get the vibe I go for it. She began to kiss me back but then she started laughing because she said it was bizarre kissing a zombie. I smirked but then kissed her again. We were kissing when her friend came back with the little kids. She was like “what are you doing?! are you nuts?!” Amy laughed, “I guess so.” She had zombie makeup and blood all over her face. She gave me her number before her friend dragged her off.

Anyway, so we packed up the corpse and then we took off. We were in the Mystery Machine, all crowded in. We drove to a different park, parked the van, then all came out of the back in a small horde, wandering around and moaning for a little while. Then we went to the mall. Can’t be a zombie and not go to the mall. Security kicked us out, said they’d have us arrested for disturbing the piece or performing without a permit. It was a compliment to know we were professionally disturbing.

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